


Pebbles

by inspiration_assaulted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mating Habits of Penguins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspiration_assaulted/pseuds/inspiration_assaulted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John keeps finding rocks and he doesn't know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pebbles

**Author's Note:**

> A quick drabble response to a Tumblr prompt by navydream.

There was a rock in John’s mug.

Granted, it was a clean rock. There wasn’t any dirt. Nor had it chipped or scratched his mug. It had a very smooth surface.

But still. There was a rock in his mug. The mug he wanted to have his tea in.

With a sigh, John placed the rock by the sink and went about making tea. If there was one thing he had learned from living with Sherlock, it was not to question the strange things that occasionally showed up.

The next day, there was a stone in the pocket of John’s coat. He was walking to Tesco when he noticed it, and it made him stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

It was another smooth stone, like the one he found in his mug. This one was a speckled brown color, but there was nothing extraordinary about. It was just a smooth river rock, about a third of the size of his palm.

John ran his thumb across it. Then he shrugged, put it back in his pocket, and continued on his way.

If it was one of Sherlock’s experiments, at least it seemed reasonably harmless. Sometimes it was just better not to say anything.

The stones started appearing every day. They cropped up in his pockets, next to his plate at the table, on the bathroom shelf by his toothbrush, even in his shoes.

Sherlock never seemed to be around when John found the rocks, which he thought was curious. If it was one of Sherlock’s experiments, wouldn’t he want to see John’s reactions?

A week and a half’s worth of stones had built a little cairn on John’s desk. They were all different sizes, from little pebbles to rocks that filled his palm. They were a wide range of colors, too. Dull greys and browns, smooth blacks, even little orange and white ones that looked like they had been picked out of someone’s pea gravel walkway. The only thing they had in common was how smooth they all were, like river rocks.

John just wished he knew why they kept appearing!

He stared at that night’s offering, setting in the center of his pillow. It was smooth also, but in a professionally polished way, buffed to a high shine, and it wasn’t any bigger than a £1 coin, oblong in shape. It was a hazy white color, like frozen smoke.

John held it up to the lamp, looking at the way light diffused through it.

His mind made up, he headed back down the stairs to where Sherlock was still up.

“Sherlock, why have I been getting rocks for nearly two weeks?” he asked. Sherlock was facing away from John, but he could see a delightful little flush spread across the back of his neck.

“Is it one of your experiments?” he pressed when Sherlock turned to face him.

“I...suppose,” Sherlock said slowly. John shook his head. He knew Sherlock was deflecting, letting him make his own assumptions.

“So it really isn’t, then,” he said. “So what’s up with the rocks?”

Sherlock bit at his lip, embarrassed in a way John had never seen before.

“Sherlock?”

“Penguins,” he muttered, not meeting John’s eyes. John frowned.

“You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

Sherlock moved past him to sit on the sofa. John sat beside him, watching his flatmate wring his hands.

“When Gentoo penguins court, the male brings the finest pebbles he can find to his prospective mate to build their nest and prove his worth,” he rambled. “The Gentoo breed of penguins is one of the breeds that mate for life. When we had the case at the Edinburgh Zoo, you expressed a fascination with the penguins, those were Gentoo penguins-“

“Sherlock,” John cut off the stream of consciousness with a smile. “Are you trying to court me?”

“I…yes,” Sherlock mumbled, bright red.

“With penguin mating habits.”

“Yes.”

“To be your life mate,” John continued, his smile growing.

“I know it’s unorthodox, but all those ways were boring and everyone does the flowers and dinner and wine and we’ve never been ‘everybody’ and I thought if I was different enough you might give it a chance-“

“Sherlock!” John chuckled. “Stop.”

“I understand, of course. You’ve never expressed any romantic interest in a man, and I’m difficult to get along with at the best of times-“

John pressed his mouth to Sherlock’s, shutting him up more effectively, and kissed him soundly.

“You idiot,” he said fondly when they broke away. “I’ve been interested in you since the day we met. You just shut me down so solidly with your little married-to-your-work spiel, I never did anything.”

“Then…you…yes?” Sherlock stumbled out, eyes still wide from the unexpected kiss.

“Of course, Sherlock,” John smirked. “I’ll be your life mate. You brought me such fine rocks, after all.”

“Shut up,” Sherlock groused and kissed him again.

The rocks and pebbles found their way into a glass jar on the mantle, opposite from the skull. Sherlock still occasionally presented John with particularly interesting pebbles he found. John always kissed him for it.


End file.
